Last week I spent Monday afternoon trying on bras in a department store.Â Whatever happened to the days when sales associates would hang on your every request, and run back and forth across the sales floor to bring you anything you desired? Â They used to offer to find other sizes or different styles while you tried on merchandise in the fitting room.Â Last week, instead, it was my job – as the customer – to do the running and searching, in between reps of dressing and undressing.Â I left the store empty-handed and exhausted.

Fortunately or unfortunately for me, IÂ remember the days of true customer service, when sales associates couldn’t do enough for their customers.Â They made you feel special and pampered, especially when you were shopping in the intimate apparel department.Â Sometimes there were two or three âFit Specialists”Â helping you at once.Â One would actually measure you and tell you your size (imagine that â no guessing).Â She would undoubtedly be the senior associate and the person in charge.Â SheâdÂ ask you a few questions and, voila, her assistant would disappear for a few moments and then reappear with several styles for you to try on.Â Having received complete attention and comprehensive assistanceÂ (everything from showing you how to put on the bras to adjusting the straps for you), you left the store feeling satisfied, carrying at least one, if not two, well-fitting bras.Â It made you feelÂ good about your shopping experience.

Iâve had enough of present-day bra shopping and the past is, well, history.Â So what could the future hold?Â Fast forward, for a moment, to the year 2020.Â The experience of bra shopping has become so easy!Â As you enter the fitting room, you push a few computer buttons and provide pertinent information, like the styles and colors youâre looking for.Â You hold still while a complete body scan is performed that ensures youâre precisely measured (without any undressing).Â Next, youâre ushered into an area where coffee and tea are served, and free back and neck massages are offered.Â In approximately ten to fifteen minutes a sales associate appears with a package and calls yourÂ name.Â As you approach her desk, she asks for payment that requires only your thumb print on herÂ storeâs smartphone.

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